“You have brains in your head… You have feet in your shoes… You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” – Dr Seuss.
Because of the goings-on in Nigeria’s socio-political space, one obvious thing is the fact that things can not be their usual self again, going forward. The high level of distrust, hatred, display of ethnic supremacy, and profiling of ethnic groups for violence have become the order of the day.
The hordes of sad stories emanating daily are alarming. Stories of kidnap, armed robbery, molestation of Northern people, both Fulani and others domiciled in the Southern part of the country, are now daily occurrences.
These crimes seem intractable because of the seemingly culpable silence from the Southern leaders, which could be assumed as acquiescence to the nefarious activities of IPOB, UGM, and other criminal elements perambulating along the creeks.
This write-up is a clarion call to our Northern governors and other political leaders to act and salvage the North and Northerners from the wanton destruction of their lives and properties by their hostile host.
The intensity of unfounded, well-articulated hatred meted on innocent citizens whose only crime is being Northerners as designed by fate has reached an unbearable level that victims have resorted to leaving those places against their wish, and the spirit of the Nigerian constitution, whereas those Southerners living in the North are going about their normal activities with no molestations.
Our Governors need to team up as has never happened before and strategically provide the leadership required to create a conducive environment to accommodate all our returning people forced out because of the hostilities of the Southerners.
The provision of jobs and establishment of vocational centres must be priorities for the general emancipation of the youths with potentials for the acquisition of skills to partake in jobs hitherto left for Southern youths, e.g. auto mechanics, building artisans, welders, etc.
The region needs leadership direction in articulating policies that will yield a peaceful society and guaranteed economic prosperity for the wellbeing of all.
The North comprise approximately 70% of Nigeria’s vast land sandwiched between Sahel, Sudan and Guinea Savannah vegetational zones and is endowed with a lot of mineral resources and friendly arable land for farming and other Agriculture activities like animal rearing and husbandry. Whereas all these are God-given gifts, they require God-given common sense to harness for the benefits of humanity.
The political arena has pitched the Southern part of the country against the North. No thanks to the satanic and selfish projections of the reality on the ground by the Southern elites.
The North is now at different times referred to as parasite or leech, with insinuations that entire Northern Nigeria is not productive and is just populated by illiterates with zero production capability to contribute to the central purse.
As a result, the Southern regions now sought to secede from the union by “thunder, by fire”. They overheat the polity and instil violence everywhere. These, coupled with the existing conflicts in the North East and some parts of North West, have successfully engaged the country in overdraft mode.
Contrary to insinuations by the South, a handful of documents from the archives have revealed how the Northern region was generating a lot of money for the colonial administrations.
Sometimes, monies from cattle tax were the dominant revenue to the Government. The gradual relegation of the erstwhile money sources like the Cattle tax, hides and skin, Cotton, groundnut in the North, and other items like cocoa and palm oil in the South, was made possible because of the discovery of oil in the South-South.
This made successful Administrations abandon the legacy sources of our collective revenue to only focus on Liquid gold (oil) which of course is a diminishing and perishable entity that comes to zero with time.
The North as a matter of urgency should organize a high-level think tank to appraise, strategise and re-strategise on a way forward. We should emphasise the need to identify all the God-given mineral resources that abound in the subregions of the North with all the urgency it deserves.
We should bring together all sectors of human endeavours to immediately begin exploitation where it does not exist, and if existing, we should explore ways of enhancement to global standards. Where necessary, identified retired personnel of Northern extraction in key skilled sectors can be brought in to take part in the early coordination of setting up and, or expansion of the existing stages. Key sectors like power, ICT, mining, environmental protection, specialized agric, etc…
The North might not be rich enough on the surface, but the potentials for richness abound in every nook and cranny of the region. International partners and investors, e.g. China, The Netherlands, etc.. should be invited to assist in exploiting all the vast resources lying fallow in the region. Lest we forget, South Africa, DRC, Ghana are countries that thrive on mining; The North has plenty of minefields for different minerals untapped.
Also, China, India, Mexico, Turkey, Morocco are big countries that use large-scale irrigation in meeting their agric and economic targets; the North has plenty of arable lands suitable for all-round Irrigation. They abound in all the sub-regions and are just waiting to be harnessed. Cattle rearing that is a pride of the North is now turned upside down and considered evil. We can explore modern ranching in partnership with countries like The Netherlands that have made a global landmark in that area.
The North also prides itself on other money-spinners like ginger, gum arabic, etc. The list of God-given resources is endless. What we require is the will to patriotically harness these using the most advanced global techniques.
Running pari passu with a proposed economic blueprint should be a cultural reorientation agenda that will nurture our youths on the need for tribal and religious tolerance.
A society needs peace to thrive and develop. Our leaders must come up with an agenda for us to celebrate more of our binding factors and less of our differences within the Northern settings. The blood that runs in our veins is as designed by the Almighty, the Creator of all. Our Merciful creator can not be wrong. We only need to be rational enough to realise being tolerant of each other is the key to a peaceful and prosperous society.
In conclusion, suffice it to remind our governor’s that now is action time and not time for mere rhetorics. The North must be consciously ready to compete with other regions whether in an eventual restructured system, or a balkanized environment.
It must stand alone on its feet as it was before the coming of the colonial masters. It is pertinent to note that the North is actually at so many advantages compared to other regions in terms of useful land, minerals and resources, etc. All that we require is strategic thinking and planning and the political will to set the ball rolling in coordination and harnessing all the multitude of potentials that abound.
We require action today, and not tomorrow! There should be no room for procrastination!
I see a prosperous export-oriented North springing up with a variety of opportunities for our teeming youths. I see a rebirth of an egalitarian society that we all will be proud of.
Indeed “We have brains in our head. We have feet in our shoes. We can steer ourselves in any direction we choose.”
We should be able to harness all the good we have and manage the not so good in our chosen path to prosperity.
